The Treasure of the Hairy Cadre (An Alpine Grove Romantic Comedy Book 8)

by Susan C. Daffron

  Joel raised a single eyebrow. “That’s an understatement. But you are not Sara or Beth.”

  “I know. There’s no way I want anything that elaborate. Or complicated. Mostly I want to go on the honeymoon.”

  “I’m looking forward to that part too.”

  “That’s all assuming I survive this book. The new version of the software hasn’t even been released yet. I can’t start on the book until I get the beta version of the program.”

  “True. But you know how to use the existing one anyway. That’s how you got the contract, remember?”

  “This is going to ruin our holiday season, you know. Look at the dates. I’m going to be a total stress-ball. And presumably I’ll have a whole lot of dogs being dropped off because people tend to travel around the holidays.”

  “If we’re lucky, we won’t have a blizzard over Thanksgiving this year.”

  “We can only hope. Maybe you could ask your sister to host the meal at her house.”

  “I’ll talk to her. If I bring the stuffing, Cindy will probably be okay with it.” He crouched next to the chair and took both of her hands in his. “You don’t have to do this book, you know. If it’s too much work, you can still change your mind. But if you sign this contract, you’re committing yourself to the project.”

  Kat leaned over and gave him a kiss. “I know. How can I possibly say no? This is an amazing opportunity that fell in my lap. I don’t even have an agent. I’ve always wanted to write, and assuming I don’t expire in the process, once the book is out I’ll always be able to say I’m a published book author. That makes me a real writer, even in the eyes of people like my mother. At this point, I don’t think she has any idea what I do for a living.”

  “Okay. But I think you might want to hire a dog walker sooner rather than later.”

  “I’m putting the ad in the paper tomorrow, so we’ll have someone by the time the kennel opens officially.”

  Joel stood up again. “Speaking of deadlines, I need to get to work.”

  “Software calls?”

  “It doesn’t write itself, you know.”

  Kat reached out, took his hand, and gave it a squeeze. “Thanks for settling me down.”

  “I know you can do anything you set your mind to doing.” He bent to give her a kiss. “You’ll be fine, although I think the next few months are going to be pretty harsh.”

  “I apologize in advance for all the whining I’m going to do. I love you.”

  “I love you back.”

  After stopping by Sara’s house to pick up Zack’s car, they convoyed out of Alpine Grove. Sara hated driving in LA, so she had gotten directions to his apartment in case they got separated. Out in the sticks there wouldn’t be a problem, but once they hit traffic, things could get more challenging. He also gave her his Thomas Guide, which had pages upon pages of detailed street maps of the entire city. It was good to be prepared, since there were parts of LA that Sara would definitely prefer to avoid.

  Much of the drive was boring, and Sara had a lot of time to think while she stared at the taillights of Zack’s Lexus. She pondered her lesson plans and wondered what silly things Zack would think up to do in LA. It had been so much fun having him around at her house that even though she wasn’t a big fan of cities, she was sure he’d probably have lots of creative ideas.

  After they’d spent some quality time on the 405 freeway, traffic ground to a complete halt, giving Sara even more time to reflect on why she preferred to live in a small town where there were far fewer people and cars. She tried not to stare at the guy in the BMW in the next lane who was having his own private moment of road rage. It wasn’t like anyone could do anything, yet he seemed to be railing against the ugly reality of his situation. His windows were closed, so at least he was able to smash his hand against the steering wheel and yell privately in air-conditioned comfort.

  An hour later, she’d finally crawled to the exit and was able to head down Venice Boulevard toward Marina del Rey, where Zack’s apartment was located. At some point when she wasn’t paying attention, his car had vanished into the sea of slug-like traffic and she was on her own. As she drove, she became aware of the increasing congestion because of all the restaurants and people in the area. Getting around in a car would be a nightmare. She was glad Zack had told her his building had a garage, because she’d never find a place to park on the street.

  After circling the block a few times, she found the building and drove into the underground garage. Zack had told her to park in one of the special visitor spots and he’d get her a pass to put on her dashboard so they wouldn’t tow her car away. People took their parking spaces seriously.

  Sara got out of the car and dragged her suitcase from the back seat. Looking around the garage, she had no idea where Zack might be. Was he here yet? There was no way to know, but it was unlikely that he could have ended up getting here after she did. Hoisting her bag onto her shoulder, she walked to the elevator and took it to the third floor.

  She wandered down the hallway to apartment 305 and knocked on the door. Zack answered with a grin and waved her inside. He had a phone pressed to his ear with one hand, but grabbed her bag off her shoulder with his other hand, and dropped it in the hallway.

  The tile entryway led into an open living and dining room that had beige carpet and a fireplace at one end. A kitchen was to the right and double doors led to a large master bedroom on the left. Another smaller bedroom was accessed from the hallway. The kitchen had white tile counters and appliances that looked fairly new. It was all somewhat generic, but the apartment was pleasant and the building was obviously well maintained.

  Zack gestured to indicate that she should sit down on the sofa in the living area. Like the carpet, the sofa was beige with a Southwest pattern. If you didn’t have a dog, you could probably get away with furniture like this, but it certainly wouldn’t work at Sara’s house. Muddy Holly paws would stain the fabric in mere moments.

  As Sara looked around the space, she felt uncomfortable. It was oddly awkward sitting here doing nothing while Zack was talking to someone on the phone. She and Zack had spent time together in multiple locations now, but for the first time she felt out of place. Maybe he’d felt this way at her parents’ house or when she’d been busy calling people. But maybe not, since her mother had a wonderful knack for making everyone feel welcome.

  Sara leaned forward and gazed toward the kitchen. Where had Zack gone? Was he ever going to get off the phone? She’d been driving for hours and it would be nice to have something to eat or drink. Would it be wrong to start rummaging around Zack’s apartment? Maybe he’d think she was snooping. It wouldn’t be completely inaccurate either, since she was curious and snooping would happen as a side-effect. She leaned back against the squishy pillows again. There weren’t even any books or magazines on the coffee table, so she couldn’t pretend to read. This was irritating and borderline rude. She was a guest and had just traveled hours to be here, after all. Why should the person on the phone take priority over her?

  She got up and walked around the apartment. The bedroom had a king-sized bed with the legendary sheets and fluffy pillows. Apparently, Zack hadn’t been kidding about them. She walked back down the hallway and peered into the second bedroom. Zack was standing next to a desk that looked like a bomb full of copier paper had exploded all over it. A long table had even more papers on it. How could anyone work in such a complete disaster area?

  He looked over at her, shrugged, and mimicked a duck bill with his hand. Apparently, the person he was talking to had a whole lot to say. Sara raised her eyebrows and flipped her palms toward the ceiling in silent query.

  Zack shook his head slightly and rolled his eyes. “Jeff, you’re not listening to me. That number makes no sense. You’d have to sell one every three seconds. Do you honestly think that’s going to happen? I don’t, since it never has before. Give me a real number. Then you need to calculate the cost of goods sold and subtract that number from your sales to f
igure out your gross profit. You have to pay all your expenses out of the gross profit, so you need to know that number. Once you have it, you can find out how much capital you need. Listen, send me a new spreadsheet with numbers that aren’t completely imaginary and we’ll talk. Okay? Yeah, fine. I gotta go. Later.”

  Zack pulled the phone away from his ear and looked down at it as he pressed a button. He glanced at Sara. “Sorry about that. This guy is melting down about trying to get a loan.”

  “It sounds like he’s having difficulty.” She pointed at the phone. “He called you at night on a cell phone?”

  Zack looked at it. “Yeah, my clients all have my cell number. This guy was really pissed because my voice mailbox is full. I wish I hadn’t answered it.”

  They both jumped as the phone rang again in his hand.

  Sara said, “For heaven’s sake, don’t answer it. I’m starving.”

  “Yeah, me too.” He pressed a button and left the phone on a stack of papers on the desk. “Let’s find someplace to eat.”

  The phone on the desk rang and Zack gave her an anxious look. “Crap. What if it’s something important?”

  Sara scowled and gestured toward the desk.

  “I promise I’ll get rid of whoever it is real quick.”

  Sara nodded, but didn’t buy it. If this was what Zack’s real life was like, her visit wasn’t going to be much fun at all.

  Sara opened her eyes and found Zack crouched next to the sofa with his hand on her shoulder. She turned her head and looked around in confusion. “I guess I fell asleep.”

  “Yeah, sorry it’s so late. Maybe we could order in. There’s a pretty good Chinese restaurant nearby that delivers. Their kitchen doesn’t shut for another hour or so.”

  “Have you been on the phone all this time?”

  “Yeah. Word got out that I’m back in cell-phone range.”

  “Can’t you turn it off?”

  “I did. They called the other line and I answered it.”

  “Perhaps that wasn’t such a good idea.”

  “Well, it’s probably good in the long run. I talked to this client of mine—Dale—and the guy is freaking out. I guess he’s been sending emails for days. So I checked and that led down a rabbit hole of other crises. While I was in Alpine Grove, everybody I work with managed to have some disaster, to the point my email crashed and was bouncing stuff back. It’s fixed now, but my inbox still has two hundred and twenty-three unread emails from clients in it.”

  “Is this unusual?”

  Zack looked surprised by the question for a moment. “Well, the email crash is. The rest, not really, I guess.”

  “People call you this late all the time?”

  “I told you I work a lot.” He gave her a kiss. “Lemme find the menu for this place and we’ll eat.”

  After dinner, Sara was exhausted and they curled up together in the 300-million-thread-count sheets. Zack stroked her cheek with his fingertip. “I’m glad you agreed to come visit.”

  Sara kissed him. “So what do you have planned for tomorrow?”

  “I don’t know. We’ll figure something out.”

  “You know I hate it when you say that.”

  When Sara opened her eyes the next morning, she reached across the bed and discovered Zack wasn’t there. She sat up. The drapes were closed, but sunlight peeked around the edges of the heavy cloth. Where was Zack?

  Sara got up and walked across the room to see what was outside the window. The curtains covered sliding glass doors that led to a balcony. The back side of the apartment overlooked a courtyard that had a fountain in the middle. A couple walking hand-in-hand below had stopped to gaze at the rushing water. From somewhere outside, tires squealed and a car horn honked, obviously startling the couple from their romantic moment. Sara recalled sitting in front of the tranquil waterfall in the forest with nothing except the sound of birds twittering. Suddenly she was terribly homesick. Maybe they could go to a park with trees somewhere.

  After getting dressed, Sara padded across the living room in her stocking feet to the kitchen. A cursory investigation of the refrigerator and pantry yielded virtually nothing. Did Zack ever eat at home?

  She went back to the office, where Zack was sitting at the desk, his phone pressed to his ear. He was staring intently at something on the computer screen. She knocked quietly on the door and he turned around.

  Sara leaned on the door jamb. “You have no food here.”

  He covered the mouthpiece. “There’s the leftovers from last night.”

  “Chinese food for breakfast? I don’t think so.”

  Raising a fingertip at her, he said into the phone. “Hey, I gotta go. We can talk about this later.”

  After he hung up, Sara said, “Who on earth were you talking to at six in the morning?”

  “He’s on the east coast, so it’s nine there.”

  Sara crossed her arms. “You seem to have a lot of work to do. I think it might be a good idea if I went back home.”

  “But you just got here.”

  “What do you plan to do today?”

  “I haven’t thought about it. You’re the planner, not me. I can always depend on you to have some plan.”

  “Oh, so now I’m dependable again. How flattering.”

  Zack raised his hands in capitulation. “Whoa, sorry. What’s going on?”

  “I think coming here was a mistake. You have too much to do and I’m in the way.”

  “I’m behind on pretty much everything. But I figured if you were asleep anyway, I could get through some of this stuff.” He ran his fingers through his hair. “Maybe we can go somewhere later.”

  “Ever since I arrived, you’ve been so unhappy and I think me being here is making it worse. I don’t want to add to your stress. I should go.”

  “Hey, I’m fine. You don’t have to leave. I’m always like this.”

  “No, you’re not. But some of the things you’ve said about work make more sense now.” She gestured toward the office. “This is your whole world, isn’t it? Your whole life is your business.”

  “Yeah, I guess. It’s what I do. I do have to earn a living, you know.”

  “I realize that, but it’s not like you’re destitute. I thought I knew you, but I’m afraid I actually don’t. I didn’t realize before that this is what you want.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Maybe for us, being together only works in a forest.” Sara shook her head. She wasn’t saying this right, and she was afraid she was going to burst into tears before she could get it out. “The person I fell in love with sings at bears and runs naked into the lake like a crazed idiot.”

  “What?” Zack’s eyes widened. “You want me to run into a lake again?”

  Sara wiped away a tear. “I’m sorry. I know I’m not making sense. But I’ve been here for less than twelve hours and I’ve already learned to hate your cell phone and computer. While you were on the phone, I had a lot of time to think and I’m pretty sure we want different things from life.”

  A flash of annoyance crossed Zack’s face. “So I don’t pay attention to you for a few minutes because I have to work and suddenly you’re willing to completely chuck everything? Is that seriously what you’re saying here?”

  “I think so. Yes, I guess I am. I’m sorry. I love you, but I can’t see how we can be together in any long-term way.”

  “This is new. Okay, well, whatever you want. That’s fine. I guess I should have figured it. You’re just like everyone else. Why should you be any different?” He stood up and walked across the room to face her. “But it’s a little bizarre that you seem to think I should live in a tent or something.”

  Sara shook her head and wiped her eyes again. “That’s not what I mean. You’re just so different here. Anxious and stressed. And from what you’re saying, it sounds like that’s the way you always are when you’re here.”

  “Well hey, welcome to my real life. This is where I live, and this is what I do. Sorry
if it doesn’t meet your high standards.”

  “Standards? My standards? You actually have the nerve to say that to me again?” Sara whirled around. “It’s got nothing to do with my standards. I want to be happy and I thought you wanted that too, but obviously, you don’t. Clearly, I was wrong about you. I’ve got to go now.”

  The cell phone rang on the desk and Zack gave her a final glare before picking it up. Sara fled the room, packed up her things, and hurriedly left the apartment, wanting to get away before his call ended. By the time she reached the parking garage, she felt physically ill, almost as if she were going to throw up. The drive back to Alpine Grove was going to be horribly long and weepy.

  Chapter 13

  Lonesome Town

  By the time Sara got back to Alpine Grove, she was feeling terrible about the things she’d said to Zack. He’d obviously been surprised and she’d hurt his feelings, which was the last thing she’d wanted to do. The way his expression had gone from confusion to surprise to anger played like a movie in her mind.

  But after hours of examining the problem from every angle, she decided she couldn’t imagine them actually staying together or having any future with one another. They’d probably kill each other first. Maybe she hadn’t gone about it the right way, but leaving had been for the best. Zack definitely wasn’t the person she thought he was. After what had happened with Josh, she wasn’t going to be dumb enough or deluded enough to pretend a man was someone he was not. Not again. She wasn’t that big of a fool for love.

  Once she reached town, she drove straight out to the kennel to pick up Holly, rather than stopping by her house. She couldn’t remember what the sign at the kennel said about the pick-up and drop-off hours, and she really wanted to see Holly. Kat was surprised and may have been more than a little annoyed when Sara showed up unannounced. But without Holly around, Kat could enjoy the last of her summer vacation. That was exactly what Sara was going to do. No more distractions. It was time to return to reality.